"It's amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness." - Leo Tolstoy

The good news: we only got up to 92 today. Humidity at 41% and a dew point at 65 made it feel pretty uncomfortable. The better news: tomorrow we should only hit 84, and by Sunday we'll be down to 75 with a slight chance of rain, something we haven't seen in three months. Weather for Saturday's race should be just about perfect.

The guy who beat me last year has moved up an age division and no one with a time faster than mine has moved up into my division, so unless we have a newcomer I have a good chance of winning my group. Last year I'd done some track work but also had to walk some because of a nasty cramp. This year I lost time because of my toe surgery/procedure so I'm not in the kind of shape I was last year, but if I can run the entire distance (last year I had to walk off the cramp) I shouldn't have any trouble beating my time.

I've been watching some of the track and field world championships from London while I eat lunch. I wish they covered the field events more, but the track draws more viewers because it generates more flash.
I caught the women's 800m prelims today. Wow. They have a problem.

I've learned that the term androgynous is considered derogatory, and DSD (those letters stand for the three words that make up the clinical diagnosis) is the appropriate description. That's when someone has elements of both sexes, both physiologically and hormonally. For the last several years the women's 800m event has been dominated by South Africa's Caster Semyena, with Margaret Wambui from Kenya dominating events she's run. Both have DSD and were told to take drugs that would lower their naturally occurring testosterone. However, after a series of challenges and hearings it was decided that because the testosterone is naturally occurring in these athletes it wasn't fair to take action against them, like making them take drugs to lower their testosterone levels.
(In case you're wondering, their testosterone levels are equal to or higher than those of typical male athletes, and over 10x the normal female levels.)
The "supreme court for sports" also decided there isn't sufficient evidence that testosterone in female athletes improves their performance.

I'm guessing those officials weren't watching today's heats. Ridiculous. And I felt bad for the other women runners who don't look to stand a chance of winning a medal.